Human rights in Armenia are violated in many areas, regardless of sex, however, the violations against women exist starting from elementary rights, which further end up with misfortune, said Anush Khachatryan, program coordinator of the “Society without Violence” NGO, in the conversation with Aravot.am, on the occasion of International Human Rights Day.
The company is involved in women’s rights protection, and based on the experience obtained in the process of years, Anush Khachatryan opined that the best way to prevent violence against women and to defend the right of women is to pass the law on “Domestic violence”, to which, however, the Ministry of Justice, so to speak, did not proceed. As presented by A. Khachatryan, the RA legislation does not provide for a law on domestic violence, but there are some provisions that provide for the violence, beating, crime, if any of these occur, they are included in the Criminal Code.
“This allows many wives not to apply to the court, because when they are hit once, or subjected to psychological violence, the police comes and says that they are a family, they would argue, and the husband may hit once, and so on, and the case does not reach solution due to absence of corpus delicti. If it gets to the criminal part, many wives do not want their husbands to be judged. When we tell many wives that their husbands would be judged, they did not want to investigate the case, they do not have a problem with judging, they want the violence to stop at that very moment rather than their husbands go to jail.” Should the law be adopted, as said by the NGO member , the policeman would have the mechanism to learn the situation, and, accordingly, take the abusive husband away from home for a few days until the court decision, or the spouses would get along with each other, and the husband would come to his senses thinking that there is a punishing body for hitting his wife, and the wife would feel protected.
To the observation of Aravot.am that the Ministry of Justice has justified that taking the abusive husband away from home is anti-constitutional, and the person should not be deprived of its property, Anush Khachatryan responded as follows, “Initially, it was designed to create shelters for men, when the abusive husband has a place to go after leaving the house, in response to this the Ministry said that there are no funds, under this conditions, it is much easier to remove the abusive husband from the family for a few days, rather than deprive from the property. In compliance with RA Constitution, the property right of a human is inalienable, except for the cases prescribed by the law. In other words, the law can define the cases, with which the right to the house can restricted and removed for several days.”
Pursuant to NGO data, only the cases that the Center is engaged, 6 out of 14 cases of violence ended in murdering of the wives. And, when the case was investigated, it was found out that the wife was beaten or subjected to violence for years, and the neighbors were aware of it and have not informed the police. “However, if the law on Domestic Violence is enacted, many women would not be beaten for years, would not be murdered, since it would be prevented initially.” Currently, due to the absence of law, as said by Anush Khachatryan, when the woman turns to the police after the violence, often, even in almost all cases, the police is trying to reconcile. “The police says, it’s the same, I had imposed a fine on him, you have to pay it, your husband does not work, your children would stay hungry, and convinces the wife to take the application back. After several cases following it, the matter got to the point of murdering. In other word, when the police refuses to prosecute, it tries to play the role of a reconciler, it complicates the situation, because the experience shows that the situation does not end up with only beating, and it comes to the point that the wife is almost dead, and in this case, the police officer does not need the application of the wife to file a case.” With regard to passing the law, the Ministry of Justice assured that by 2017 it is suspended until the legislative reforms, where the provisions brought up by the NGO would be provided for by other laws. However, this answer does not satisfy the organizations bringing up the legislative initiative.
Anush Khachatryan said, “The Ministry brings arguments that the law was not denied, but suspended, if no contradiction is found in the law, they would pass it. We have serious concerns that this is not the case, if it was, they could have worked with us with their working team and professionals and adjust it, however, they do not do it and leave it on our own, so that they would review only the final version, but there is no guarantee that if we adjust in compliance with legislation and the Constitution, they would pass it and would not say that it also does not comply.” The 6 murdering cases of wives on the ground of gender recorded by one organization; it is not the number that depicts the true picture, in fact, as A. Khachatryan said, the cases are growing in number. The cases of these 6 wives was raised, and they got to know about them, however, there are thousands of concealed and unrevealed cases.
Nelly Babayan
